Question 1“In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its phantasy on to the female figure which is styled accordingly.” (Mulvey 750)

Mulvey refers here to classic Hollywood cinema. Is her analysis still relevant? Discuss in relation to films from the classic era and contemporary cinema. Refer to films screened in this unit and films of your choice with attention to mise en scene and narrative structure.

Laura Mulvey identifies certain patterns in narrative cinema regarding the model of power between the gaze and the subject of the gaze as written in her text “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, she has concluded that the women in film are treated not as separate entities from the male characters, but instead served only as reflective surfaces for the male characters, echoing their desires and motivations. (Mulvey 43-5) Active/male refers to the male characters in a film as the one leading and always the one looking whereas passive/female, on the contrary, refers to woman as an object; always being looked at and submissive, always submitting to the male. In other words, women are sexual beings, and their passiveness plays to the male’s aggressive nature. The subject’s sexual satisfaction comes from “watching, in an active controlling sense, an objectified other” (Mulvey 43-5). The female figure is being fantasized and used as an erotic object in the classic Hollywood film. This essay will argue if Mulvey’s analysis of the male gaze is still relevant in contemporary cinema. Mulvey’s analysis using visual pleasure and narrative cinema and scopophilia will be discussed in the first three paragraphs. This essay will then further examine Studlar’s theory (Tamiko 24-6) and how spectatorship and subjectivity which challenge her analysis. This essay will conclude by arguing that Mulvey’s analyses even though referring to the classic Hollywood cinema, is still relevant in contemporary cinema to a certain extent.

First and foremost, Mulvey has suggested that there were two distinct modes of the male gaze; voyeurism (woman viewed as beautiful) and fetishistic (woman are viewed sexually). (47) In relation to the concept of scopophilia, a term to describe the pleasure watching, Mulvey (47) goes on to describe the specific, complex processes, by which the male unconscious is enacted or performed upon the image/body of woman in cinema. A classic Hollywood film that clearly shows this male gaze is a Howard Hawks film, The Big Sleep (1946). The relationship between Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) and Vivian Rutledge (Lauren Bacall) is relatable to Mulvey’s analysis of the films To Have and Have Not (1944) and Only Angels Have Wings (1939), Lauren Bacall’s character is isolated, glamorous, on display and sexualized. But as the narrative progresses, she falls in love with the main male protagonist and becomes his property, losing her outward glamorous characteristics; her eroticism is subjected to the male star alone. Another example that shows the submissive female is from the film The Thing from Another World (1951) where the female was seen making drinks for the male and was dressed in a provocative way, not having any important role nor lines. Women are objectified in these films, signifying the patriarchal culture, while the women having passive roles has been created as misogyny by the media (Mulvey 43-45). These two examples strongly support Mulvey’s analysis of how there is a sexual imbalance and the woman submitting to the male, being all weak and passive.

In addition, Mulvey (47) describes two kinds of pleasure in film that is always produced for the male gaze: scopophilic and narcissistic, the pleasure in recognizing self in others. This was created by the psychoanalysis where the Oedipus Complex explained that the infants undergo a ‘mirror phase’ where visual recognition of the physical body as the main...

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...February 2012
MaleGaze in Vertigo
Several film theorists have used a variety of tactics and view points to analyze feature films since their inception. One of the most prominent theorists of those that analyze films from a feminist perspective is Laura Mulvey. Mulvey is famous for her essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” which presents an array of theories involving the treatment of women in films. Arguably the most notable idea presented in Mulvey’s work is the existence of the “malegaze” in films. This essay will examine Mulvey’s theory of the malegaze in relation to Alfred Hitchcock’s film, Vertigo. Vertigo does not fit the criteria of a film that embodies Mulvey’s “malegaze” because of three key elements, the presentation of the Midge character, the flashback scene, and the conscious submission of Judy’s character to the wishes of Scottie.
Before these elements of the film can be related to the “malegaze,” it is imperative to understand the theory behind the gaze according to Laura Mulvey. The malegaze is a theory which states that most films are shown from the point of view of a white, middle-class male. That includes the complete objectification of women into sex objects. This includes scenes that accentuate the curves of a woman’s body, or...

...Man with the Movie Camera:
The MaleGaze
Between every audience and a film there will always lay a camera; this camera may seem transparent or not visible, but nevertheless there is a camera and a cameraperson filming the scenes. Laura Mulvey, within her essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, coins the term “malegaze,” where the intermediary, the camera, is metaphorically transformed to the eyes of a male, changing how we view cinema, as well as both men and women immortalized on the silver screen. Dziga Vertov, a Soviet director, wrote and directed an avant-garde, silent documentary film called Man with the Movie Camera in 1929. Despite being famous for its anti-narrative cinematical elements, the film includes a number of narrative developments of human movement in the Soviet Union, which portray power struggles between the government, men, and women. Vertov’s Man with the Movie Camera reflects Mulvey’s psychoanalytic malegaze by abstaining from the use of a visible subject or actors, its use of a wide and unusual variety of cinematic camera techniques, and a male perspective.
Man with the Movie Camera lacks a clear or constant visible subject or actor, and thus supports Mulvey’s theory of the malegaze in cinema. The film, instead of having recognizable characters or actors, attempts to capture the life of a camera...

...portrayed through photography?
The gaze deals with how the audience views the people presented in visual culture, in this case, adverts, magazines and Cinema. The ‘malegaze’ is the male ability to exercise control over women by representing them in visual means as passive, sexual objects of male desire. The power of men over women has always existed. They are seen as the more powerful and clever species. This control over women has been seen predominately in linguistics senses in past times. It is clear that there are more derogatory terms for women than there are for men. Men can also wolf whistle or cat-call in order to harass a woman but there is no such response for women. Men also have more linguistic power over women due to their social status in modern society. In more current times men have turned to visual arts to implement their control and power over women.
In this essay I hope to demonstrate how women are and have been portrayed in relation to the ‘malegaze’ and how it is still very prevalent in contemporary modern culture through photography and other mediums, such as, cinema and advertising. I will be analyzing the photographic work of Cindy Sherman, E.J. Bellocq, advertisement and the written work of Laura Mulvey and John Berger.
Traditionally imagined, written and produced by men, advertisements have long depicted women as men want them to be, sexy,...

...Question 1
'Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves' (Berger 1972:47). Discuss how this proposition of the ‘malegaze’ has been applied to feminist studies of the media.
“One thing I really envy about men,' a friend once said to me, 'is the right to look' (Dyer 1982)
Johnathan Schroeder posited ‘...togaze implies more than to look at- it signifies psychological relationship of power, in which the gazer is superior to the object of the gaze.(Schroeder, 1998)’ Keeping this in mind, in Laura Mulvey’s article ‘Visual pleasure and narrative cinema’, she proposes that the malegaze is paramount in how women are looked at and presented throughout film and other mediums in media, using this study as a political weapon. In conjunction with John Berger’s 'Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at’(Berger, 1982) statement, she explores how psychoanalysis displays the view of the audience. Her essay is heavily influenced by Freud’s work, including his work on scopophilia into the study. Mulvey’s ‘malegaze’ theory is key in feminist studies.(Mulvey, Autumn 1975) In order to understand the media, we must dissect the meanings that are embodied throughout all mediums and how...

...Is the gazemale?
Book Title: Women and Film: Both Sides of the Camera. Contributors: E. Ann Kaplan author. Publisher: Methuen. Place of Publication: London. Publication Year: 1983. Page Number: 35.
Since the beginning of the recent women’s movement, American feminists have been exploring the representation of female sexuality in the arts—in literature, painting, film, and television. As we struggle towards meaningful theory, it is important to note that feminist criticism, as a new way of reading texts, emerged from the daily, ongoing concerns of women re-evaluating the culture in which they had been socialized and educated. In this sense, feminist criticism differs in basic ways from earlier critical movements which evolved out of reaction to dominant theoretical positions (i.e. out of a reaction which took place on an intellectual level). Feminism is unusual in its combination of the theoretical and (loosely speaking) the ideological (Marxist literary theory alone shares a similar dual focus, but from very different premises). The first wave of feminist critics adopted a broadly sociological approach, looking at sex roles women occupied in various imaginative works, from high art to mass entertainment. They assessed roles as “positive” or “negative” according to some externally constructed criteria describing the fully autonomous, independent woman. While this work was important in initiating feminist criticism (Kate Millett’s Sexual...

...pattern of looks or the identity of the gaze to develop a critical reading of contemporary mainstream film? Your answer should include a close textual analysis of a recent film (produced within the last three years) and reference to relevant scholarly literature to support your argument.
The term of ‘Gaze’ describes the mode of viewing that reflecting a gendered code of desire, according to Laura Mulvey’s famous feminist psychoanalytic film studies essay ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ (Mulvey, 1975) she introduced the concept of gaze as “how an spectator views the people presented”. Mulvey using the Freudian theories of scopophilia to explain that the audience’s subjectivity is constructed from the visually enjoyable process of watching films, she augured the pleasure involved in looking at other people’s bodies as objects, and women are typically presented as just ‘sexual objects’ in the film (Mulvey, 1975). She claims the world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been divided into two sides: men as active and women as passive. The determining malegaze projects its fantasy onto the female body, women are looked at and displayed the role of exhibitionist with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic affect in films, mainstream films ingenious combined the spectacle and narrative together due to women holds their looks, plays to and signifies male...

...THE MALEGAZE THEORY AS PORTRAYED IN AMERICAN PIE
I. Introduction
The position of women in the society at present has changed gradually in the last few centuries. The role of women, as dictated by the society, is perceived by how they’re presented. Since the last three centuries, women have always been viewed as just housewives and objects of perversion.
Media is one of the factors why women are perceived as secondary to men. This is why media has a major influence to the humanity because it can reach almost all the parts of the world. May it be in print media or in film productions; women are always depicted as inferior and submissive to men’s desires.
There have been different movements aimed in altering the sexual equality of the men and women. Some of these movements attained their main goal – the social change. One of the movements that was started by the pioneers is the MaleGaze Theory. The MaleGaze Theory, a feminist theory by Laura Mulvey, was developed in 1975. It happens when the audience, or viewer, is put into the viewpoint of a heterosexual male. Mulvey stressed that the dominant malegaze in mainstream Hollywood films reflects and satisfies the male. It applies wherever you have an audience and a text being presented to that audience. Being the most dominant in the...

...Dear Student of 2011,
One essay you will read this year is Susan Bordo’s piece “Beauty (Re) discovers the Male Body”. At first glance, this essay seemed to contain many images and text that some students found offensive. Do not let this put you off from this essay, as it is well constructed. This essay by Bordo is indeed a long essay. It consists of forty five pages of detailed analysis of men in advertising. However, Bordo’s writing style is unique and fun making it an enjoyable read. I feel that by breaking the reading into sections, makes the essay easier to understand. Also what make this essay unique, Bordo included many personal stories and in depth opinions and analysis. Some of which may seem long winded but of which channels well towards her position. To me she is showing that something new and important is happening in relation to men and fashion.
Straight away in the second paragraph Bordo begins, “It was the spring of 1995, and I was sipping my first cup of morning coffee” (168) this description and numerous others throughout the essay, allows the reader to place oneself in the situation and to form their own personal feelings and opinions about the topic; Which it will not take long for you to formulate your own. The loaded text used, just pushes for attention and depending on your background may be a bit of an eye opener. I feel it is written expressively and in a style which makes it enjoyable to read.
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